Indivisible Iowa Responds To Simon Conway’s Bizarre Attack

Yesterday Simon Conway of I Heart Radio’s WHO AM 1040 irresponsibly posted screenshots from an Indivisible closed Facebook group. The post contained member names and profile pictures and had to be edited to contain the disclaimer, “UPDATE: Any threats of violence will be removed and the poster banned from the page. Period” after Conway’s supporters posted death threats on the post to members of Indivisible.

Indivisible Iowa and Action Iowa issue the following statement:

In the days following the events in Charlottesville, our non-partisan groups began productive discussions on the removal of Confederate memorials in the state of Iowa. The conversations were focused around historic research at historical societies, conversations with city councils, and whether or not Iowa had a legitimate reason to have Confederate monuments.

Iowa’s Indivisible groups have never engaged in violence of any kind or vandalism. We have, on numerous occasions, been the targets of death threats – much like what occurred today on Simon Conway’s page, followed by militias to events with Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, and mischaracterized by elected officials like Rod Blum who is “afraid” of townhalls because he is held accountable by members of Indivisible. At the heart of Indivisible in Iowa we value the democratic process and we facilitate involvement in the process.

In that spirit, we immediately announce that we will proceed with the democratic process to remove all Confederate statues in the state of Iowa. We will recommend that statues be replaced with Union statues, memorials to the many enslaved people brought to America against their will, or a memorial to the victims of lynching in Iowa. History is not “erased” because a statue comes down. There are more books about the Civil War than any other genre of history. Iowa public schools are some of the best schools in the country and they will teach our students that 76,000 Iowa men fought for the Union Army – 13,000 Iowans died and 8,000 were injured. They will teach students that the South lost their fight to own human beings as slaves and that Confederates required Presidential pardons because they were traitors.

We will also organize an event to counter the inflammatory and racist rhetoric, like Conway’s, which is evident by his show and Facebook posts. We will not stand down as people of color, women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and various religions are antagonized and dehumanized in our state. We will not stand down as Congressmen Steve King spews racist rhetoric (while having a Confederate Flag on his desk).

Simon Conway’s post was irresponsible, but it was also intentionally inflammatory. We will not be deterred from doing what is right because we are on the right side of history. Together we stand Indivisible.